Young Eagles take flight: Episcopal soars into girls lacrosse final four

The grades: Freshman, sophomore, freshman, freshman, eighth grade…

Going by a quick scan of the roster at the season's start, Episcopal girls lacrosse might have looked like a team a year away.

Now, they're sending a message: They're ready right now.

With young talent, an aggressive outlook around the net and boundless energy, a young Episcopal squad is on the rise entering Friday's Florida High School Athletic Association Class 1A state semifinal against No. 1 seed Delray Beach American Heritage.

Winners of their last five, an Eagles team with only one senior is in the final four for the second time in program history, all with only one senior in the lineup.

Maybe they weren't expected to get this far. But win Friday afternoon's 2 p.m. start at Paradise Coast Sports Complex in Naples, and they'll be playing for a championship on Saturday.

"Honestly, we are a very young team, and just seeing everyone kind of step up to the plate has been really amazing," said Hannah Bittner, the Eagles' only senior. "There's something really special."

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YOUNG COMBINATION DOMINATES DRAW

Dominating the draw is king in girls lacrosse, and Episcopal has already found its a winning combination.

That means sophomore Lilly Melograna taking the draw with support from the midfield pair of Brooke McCoy and Georgia Tuttle to lead the chase for the bounding ball.

"She always puts it exactly where I'm going, which is amazing," said McCoy, who has won possession 149 times this season off the draw.

Their success in draw controls tipped the balance last week against Ponte Vedra in the regional finals, when the Eagles erased a three-goal deficit to win on McCoy's late goal in their first victory on record against the Sharks.

But their connection in the center of the field is just one way that the Eagles have quickly grown into a formidable force.

While they're younger than most of the competition, many of Episcopal's players have lined up together for years.

"These girls have been working together since they were so young, and they are such a young team, but they've been playing together," Episcopal coach Krista Crittenden said. "So they have each other's little movements and things that they do and the nuances."

EPISCOPAL BUILDS AGAINST THE BEST

In the season's early going, Episcopal's youth showed. By mid-March, the Eagles had dropped to 4-5, albeit against quality opponents from both inside and outside Florida.

"At the beginning of the year, we lost a lot of games that we should have won," McCoy said. "We had those rough patches, but I think we really stuck together as a team and our coaches are the most supportive people."

McCoy leads the Eagles with 62 goals, while the attack also gets big numbers from junior and USA Lacrosse North Florida All-American Maeve O'Neil (56 goals), freshman Payten Cree (40 goals) and junior Bella Vitulli (35 goals).

Since a March 26 loss to Ponte Vedra, Episcopal is unbeaten against Florida opponents. They also collected a 13-9 win over two-time defending Class 2A champion Bartram Trail in February.

"We've played some of the hardest teams, we went up to Virginia and we played some national powerhouses," Crittenden said. "I wanted them to have that exposure, so that when we did end up in [the playoffs], they knew that they could hang with the best."

They'll encounter one of the best again when they face off against American Heritage (20-1). The reigning state champions, ranked No. 18 in the nation by USA Lacrosse, have hammered their opponents by a combined 332-96.

No easy feat. But the Eagles are prepared to meet the challenge.

"We're going to come up with a game plan and we're going to fight as hard as we can," Crittenden said.

CLASS 1A GIRLS LACROSSE SEMIFINAL

Who: Episcopal (13-7) vs. Delray Beach American Heritage (20-1).

When: 2:30 p.m. Friday.

Where: Paradise Coast Sports Complex, Naples.

Winner faces: St. Stephen's Episcopal or Lake Highland Prep, Saturday, time TBD.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Episcopal girls lacrosse 2024: Young Eagles in FHSAA state semifinals